Nuances
by La Maddalena
Summary: I wouldn't leave you hanging like that. We're friends, right? / Zack and Cloud, fifty oneliners.


**A/N: **As-yet unofficial entry for the 1sentence comm over at LJ. Fifty sentences, theme set Epsilon.Cheer-up gift for a friend, and I like these things because they're good quick fixes. XD

**Disclaimer: **FFVII not miiiiine. D:

* * *

**Nuances**

_Motion  
_There's so much anticipation in the air that surely none of them can sit still, but with Zack it's just insane—Cloud can't think of anyone else who can get up and pace inside a moving truck.

_Cool  
_He is an object of envy just because he can sit in the back and let the wind move through his hair and not incur windburns—and because of many other things, of course, but that's the heart of it.

_Young  
_Most people forget because they don't look closely enough, but Cloud's youth shows through in his eyes, sometimes, and the way he sets his mouth in too thin a line.

_Last  
_"I think these are the last free hours we're gonna get for this mission, so why don't you show me around your hometown while we still have the chance?" Zack tells him, looping an arm around Cloud's neck and half-dragging him down the streets of Nibelheim.

_Wrong  
_"You're not holding it right," Zack whispers, and Cloud can't keep his voice—or his fingers, for that matter, clenched around the handle of the Buster Sword—from shaking when he whispers back, "I'll learn."

_Gentle  
_"You've got to learn to take better care of yourself," he tells Cloud, mock-sternly, and is sure to pour a potion down his throat before the usual grumbling response gets the chance to form.

_One  
_All the superior officers are brusque and hurried, and never really bother trying to tell any of the new recruits apart—except the odd young one, who smiles and cracks jokes and grimaces when he's called "sir."

_Thousand  
_He still doesn't know how Zack knows where he stands in line—Cloud only wishes the helmet could hide his smile when he receives a pat on the shoulder, and a "best of luck."

_King  
_They're sunk knee-deep in the snow and the world is at their feet, unrolling like a tapestry—Zack wishes the poor kid at his side would think of that and not how such great heights still make him kind of nauseous.

_Learn  
_It's nice that he's willing to stay out in the snow doing drills until he gets them exactly right, but it takes all of Zack's patience not to roll his eyes as he tucks an extra blanket around Cloud, who's gone pale as a corpse from long hours in the cold and shivers in spite of himself.

_Blur  
_Sometimes Cloud sees in brief flashes—voices, faces, the thump of heavy boots—but they're never enough to hold on to, and the only thing he can remember in the end is that he once took such pride in having a good memory.

_Wait  
_"I hate waiting," Zack grumbles, elbows propped on his knees, hands fisted in his hair; Cloud fidgets a little beside him, more out of a sense of solidarity and respect than real restlessness, but he doesn't have to know that.

_Change  
_Sometimes he catches Tifa looking at him strangely—sidelong, with a mist in her eyes, like he's not quite the same person she remembers—but he always shrugs it off because who else could he possibly be?

_Command  
_"Will you please just do as you're told?" Cloud hears the others complaining from the other side of the camp, as though of an unruly child; only he really knows what a lost cause it is, because Zack always insists on doing more.

_Hold  
__You have to hold on, _Cloud thinks, but the words stick in his throat when he sees Zack attempt to smile at him, and miss the mark by only a little.

_Need  
_"Gods, you're so hopeless sometimes I don't know what you'd do without me," Zack always says, but the words never mean anything because his irritation is always very badly feigned.

_Vision  
_"When we get to Midgar, I'm gonna open up a business that does… everything, from headhunting to cleaning gutters—and don't look at me like that, I can clean gutters—and I'm gonna make a ton of money that way, and of course you'll be right there with me, since there's no way I'd just leave you behind…"

_Attention  
_Zack laughs at how the young grunts stand so straight, as if their spines were made of steel; he claps one of them on the shoulder—the one he can always find in the line because he stands straightest of all—and whispers, "Don't worry, I'll watch out for you."

_Soul  
_When Cloud asks him where he thinks they'll go when they die, Zack shakes his head; they're never going to find out, the two of them, they're going to live forever.

_Picture  
_Their photos are pasted on facing pages in Tseng's file—he thinks, in his idle moments, that they'd actually look something alike, except Cloud Strife doesn't seem to know how to smile.

_Fool  
_Zack can't keep the grin off his face as he bends down, gathers up the snow, compresses it between his palms, and he has to keep it from spilling over into a laugh altogether when he stands up to lob the missile straight at an unsuspecting Cloud.

_Mad  
_"Come _on, _off the edge of that cliff, the two of us," Zack urges; Cloud knows there won't be any going back when it takes him more than two seconds to say no, even if it _is _a long way down, and they could get into a lot of trouble, to say the least.

_Child  
_There's so much of the child about him still—the way his eyes widen when he's startled, the way he stammers a little bit when someone asks him about home—but Zack never points these things out for fear of embarrassing the poor boy.

_Now  
_"Just don't think about tomorrow, right?" Cloud murmurs into his scarf, eyes on his feet as they scuffle the ground; Zack stares into the sky and thanks his stars that maybe he's finally teaching this kid something worthwhile.

_Shadow  
_"I'm trying to remember—" Cloud starts, but it won't come, whatever it is, and Tifa only sighs and shakes her head, mumbling that he must still be sick if he's chasing shadows.

_Goodbye  
__You have to remember me, _Cloud reads in Zack's eyes, less like eyes now than like blue crystal, full of impurities, _because as long as you remember, I don't care if anyone else forgets._

_Hide  
_Cloud's face is drawn and pale behind the glass of the tube, and what cuts Zack to the heart is that there are no longer any walls to conceal the terror.

_Fortune  
_He fidgets a little as he relates the story of how he left his sleepy mountain home to pursue a childhood dream, and though he speaks in half-sentences with many pauses in between, Zack can't remember having heard Cloud say so many words before, ever.

_Safe  
_Zack doesn't stop speaking through the noise—"I'll take good care of you, kiddo, just leave everything to me"—and he knows that Cloud can't hear him, that Cloud wouldn't be able to answer even if he _could, _but who can say for sure?

_Ghost  
_"The wind sounds like voices sometimes, when it blows around the rocks," says Cloud, without changing expression, so softly everyone else has to lean in close; Zack bites back a snicker when he sees them shift around uncomfortably, and throw cautious glances at the dark beyond the campfire.

_Book  
_He can't help being pleased that Cloud's learned to read him well enough to know when small favors will count the most—a free sip from the water bottle, for instance, or an extra page of stationery to write home with, or a light hand dropped on his shoulder—without saying anything.

_Eye  
_Stumbling and snow-blind, Zack feels Cloud's hands taking hold of his arms, hears Cloud's voice telling him—for once—that it's okay, that he'll see for both of them until they get through the storm.

_Never  
_Cloud wants to ask, sometimes, if Zack's ever thought about what will come after SOLDIER—if he intends to put down roots somewhere, if he has a place he wants to stay—because try as he might he just can't imagine Zack doing that sort of thing.

_Sing  
_"I could probably do a lot better than that," Zack tells Cloud over a bottle of beer, throwing a pitying glance at the girl up front on the makeshift stage, "but don't tell anybody I said that or they'll make me wear her dress to prove it."

_Sudden  
_Zack insists that it's not his fault, that the damn cactuar just snuck up on him and he couldn't do a thing until it was too late, but he cuts himself off to howl with pain when Cloud bends over his arm and yanks out yet another needle.

_Stop  
_Sometimes they sit up late together and count the fixed stars, because that's the only time there is to stay still and let everything be.

_Time  
_He's not sure how long it's been since the last time he heard anything but the slow slosh of fluid inside his tube; it's probably been much too long, since he finds he can barely recognize Zack's voice, and the sound of his own name.

_Wash  
_Cloud looks down at his hands, the stains grained deep in the lines of his palms lifting away where the rain touches, and wonders if that means he's forgiven.

_Torn  
_When Zack stows him behind the rock and tells him to stay there, somehow Cloud knows that letting him go could mean the end of everything; he doesn't think he'll ever stop hating himself for not having the strength to reach out and make him stay.

_History  
_He doesn't relate the story too often for fear of it not coming out right, but once in a while Cloud feels indulgent enough to linger by the children's bedsides, and tell them quietly about the hero who saved his life.

_Power  
_It's hard to speak so much, but he talks to Zack until the end, telling him haltingly that he'll be strong enough, he'll live out both their lives; Zack beams up at him through the rain and the blood and even if his breath is failing too fast to let him speak, he thinks, _I know you're strong enough._

_Bother  
_He would really rather not get wound up over small things, but on bad days Cloud remembers all too clearly that there's no longer anyone around to ruffle his hair and tell him everything's going to be okay.

_God  
_Zack's never liked thinking about these things, but now that it's nearly over he can't help wishing that someone out there looks after Cloud; though he'd love to do it all himself, it might be a little too late.

_Wall  
_Cloud tends to withdraw into himself, folding up into a tight little ball just out of sight, and Zack can't suppress a swell of pride when he finds he can feel his way through the cracks in the wall.

_Naked  
_"So this is what it feels like to be nothing," he gasps, coughs when he realizes there nearly isn't enough air to finish that sentence; his hand grips Cloud's, and neither of them can tell which one of them is holding on tighter.

_Drive  
_"Zack,"—it's funny to hear the panic creeping into Cloud's voice—"Zack, I swear,"—he doesn't think he's ever heard Cloud speak this loudly before—"if you're not going to stop fooling around, you've got to let me drive, we're going to—ZACK!"

_Harm  
_"It's okay, it's okay," Cloud intones, deadpan, the mantra Zack's used on him a million times, hooking an arm under Zack's elbow and holding him up as he heaves his carsickness out onto the roadside, "I won't let anything bad happen to you'"

_Precious  
_Zack asks him, not unkindly, what important things he thinks he's fighting for; Cloud, in turn, asks him if he knows himself, and they both laugh when they find that neither of them can answer in so many words.

_Hunger  
_The kid eats like a bird, so it shouldn't be at all irrational of Zack to stuff him with extra rations whenever he can; army slop may be army slop, but food is food.

_Believe  
_The lab is tiny and dark and damp, but Zack knows where the world is, he hears the world calling—and Zack swears that as long as they pull through one more day, they'll be able to bust out of here, and then they'll go see it all, both of them.


End file.
